


Lonely Souls

by SilverDagger



Category: Claymore
Genre: Family, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 15:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7110922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDagger/pseuds/SilverDagger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ordinary woman opens the door to a stranger one night, and finds her long-lost sisters waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lonely Souls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NumberA](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NumberA/gifts).



> A gift for NumberA. 
> 
> This isn't a drabble and it isn't exactly your prompt - it turns out that writing someone else's character was giving me trouble - but it does feature the twins reconnecting with a human family member. Also, I'm sure you know by now that I fail at writing anything happy, so hopefully bittersweet is OK.

The woman at the door is tall, dressed in a hooded cloak that doesn't quite conceal the fall of her long, pale hair, and of course the first thing Melia notices about her is her eyes. Cold silver, the color of an unsheathed blade, and Melia finds herself struck by the odd sensation of standing paralyzed, aware of but held at a distance from her own fear. She shakes it off – what right has she, of all people, to quaver like a rabbit in a trap instead of acting like a damned human being with an uninvited guest to deal with – and when she looks closer, it's a shock to realize that the woman might well be a few years younger than her. Hard to tell, of course. Melia's heard they freeze in time, or that human blood keeps them young, or other such damnable stupidity. She has no idea why she might have a silver-eyed slayer on her front porch, but she has to assume that if any slaying was going to be done, it would have happened already.

“Miss Melia?”

“It's Missus,” she snaps automatically, though her husband is two years dead and she doesn't look much like a married woman anyway, with her hair falling loose about her shoulders, no shawl or scarf to cover it. It's been a while since she cared about that kind of propriety. She doesn't care now.

“Missus Melia,” the witch says, careful, like she's wading into deep and uncertain waters. “I know you weren't expecting visitors, but there's someone that – well, some girls I think you need to talk to.”

“Girls?” Melia asks. She narrows her eyes, wondering what the Claymore is after and what precisely she's expecting _her_ to do about it. Then she sees them, hanging back outside the circle of porchlight – two wary, skittish little things with bowed heads and hands locked tight together. _Twins_ , she realizes with a start. They're white-blonde and too wiry for children, and both of them with swords as tall as they are strapped across their backs. They peer up at her unblinking through silver eyes, and it's a knife through the spine just to look at them. Twins. She hadn't thought – 

She _hadn't_ thought, but there they are anyway, and no denying it. The twins. Her sisters. Changed though they are now, there's no way it could be anyone else. But when she tries to say their names, one shakes her head, saying only, “That isn't us.”

“What, then?”

“One and Two.”

“Which are you?” she asks, because it's that or stand there staring numbly, and if she starts up with that, she might not find a way to stop.

A shrug, evasive. “It doesn't matter.”

“Well,” Melia says. “You'd better come in, then, the lot of you. You'd better – I've got soup on, and plenty of room for guests, and it's already too late for you to go on traveling.” She can feel her words racing away from her, spinning loose, and it's an effort to reel them back in. The older Claymore crouches down, talking softly – as one would, she thinks, to a balking animal, something terrified and maybe more than a little dangerous.

“Come on, then,” she says, laying a careful hand on each of their shoulders, and ushers them past Melia into the warmth of the cottage.

“I'm Audrey,” she says, pausing just inside the threshold with a slight bow and a smile. “We won't impose on your hospitality for long.”

“As long as you need to,” Melia says. “They – it's their home too.”

“Of course,” Audrey says, and something in her shoulders relaxes infinitesimally. She'd been expecting a different reception. Melia wonders about that – whether her own reputation for inhospitality has spread beyond the boundaries of her own township, or it's only that _their kind_ are accustomed to no kind of welcome at all.

“Are you tired?” Melia asks. “Hungry? Do you want a place to set those swords down?”

One of the twins blinks up at her, making no move to return her attempt at a smile, and says, “No.”

The other has been making her way around the room, touching carved shelves and support beams, but she drifts back as her sister speaks, and finds a place beside her. The two mirror each other's posture effortlessly, as if by long habit or longer training. There's something eerie in the sight, but that's an uncharitable thought, and Melia shoves it firmly back where it came from. Family is family.

One and Two. She can't keep calling them that. It's unnatural – or no, she corrects herself. None of their kind are natural. She doesn't care about natural. It isn't right. 

Melia shakes her head and goes to stir the pot bubbling on the fireplace a touch more fiercely than necessary, scowling at the broth. It's simple fare. It used to be she dreamed of luxury, when she was a girl and far more foolish than she is now. These days, she wears her clothing plain, and hates the taste of anything richer than beans and porridge.

“Dinner's almost ready,” she says. “Hang your cloaks by the door, if you want. Might as well make yourselves at home.”

“We don't need dinner,” one twin replies, peering dubiously at the soup as the other adds, “But it is appreciated.”

“It's alright,” Audrey says. “It isn't rude, saying no to things if you don't want them.”

The twins seem to consider that for a moment, then retreat to the far corner of the room, where they watch with the same wary curiosity they'd applied to the furniture and the hanging scrolls on the walls. Audrey gives them an encouraging nod, seemingly unconcerned, then turns back to Melia.

“None of us will be wanting food tonight,” she says. “Claymores don't eat very often. Once every few days or so, sometimes less. It isn't an insult to your cooking.”

And that is what they are now, Melia thinks with a habitual shudder. Children or not, they aren't human, haven't been human since they were – _lost_ , she thinks. _Taken._ It's a cold feeling that sweeps through her at the thought of it, the two of them half-demon with a demon's eyes and maybe a demon's appetites. She's heard rumors about that. Never believed them, of course. She'd bloodied a village boy's nose for suggesting it, once, after they took her sisters away. But it's different, now she really has to consider it. 

“And what,” she starts, “what exactly do Claymores eat?”

“The same thing as everyone else, but a lot less of it.” Audrey glances across the room to where the twins are sitting, and Melia realizes they must have heard her. “They're good kids, Melia. No one ever taught them how to be human, not really, but they're good kids. You need to believe that.”

“I do,” she says. _I'll_ try. There's nothing else she can do.

Melia eats her dinner with mulish determination, despite little more appetite than her guests, and listens as Audrey tells her about the twins – and how strange is _that_ , that she's got a silver-eyed witch at her table, talking family history over a glass of water that Melia suspects she only accepted to be polite. If she concentrates on that strangeness, she won't have to think about everything wrapped up in the words _family history_ that she can't do a damn thing to change.

The twins claim a place in the loft, amid old crates and sacks of things Melia doesn't need and bring herself to throw away. They were tired after all, it seems. When Melia glances up there, they're sleeping, curled close to each other with one's head on the other's chest. _One mind,_ Audrey had told her, _one consciousness, or so close it makes no difference. They aren't really separate people anymore._ Melia isn't sure how that's possible, or how much she believes it, and she doesn't want to think about how it was done. 

The ones who hurt them are dead, and she's glad of it. She isn't a warrior. She's never taken a life in battle, never learned how, never needed to. Her sisters have, though, if she has a right to think of them as sisters any longer. If the concept even applies.

Audrey stretches out like a contented cat in a chair before the fire, eyes half-closed and leaning back with her head tilted toward the ceiling.

“This place reminds me of my hometown,” she says. “Or the way it used to be, at least.”

“What happened?”

Audrey doesn't reply immediately, and Melia lets her own mind drift off into the crackle of logs in the fireplace, the memory of other times.

“Sometimes... bad things change a place,” Audrey says at last. “Everything gets built again, the same as it used to be, but there's nothing you can do to get back the spirit it before.”

Melia nods. She remembers her parents' house, the not-quite-emptiness that lingered there after the twins were gone, and thinks she might agree.

“What do you do then?” she asks.

Audrey shifts and turns toward her, silver eyes reflecting back the light. “You build something different, somewhere new.”

Easy thing to say, Melia supposes, and harder to do, but she can hardly blame anyone for trying.

“Will you stay long?” she asks.

“Most likely not,” Audrey says. “They might not either. They wanted to see you, but I'm not sure...”

Melia understands. She's a stranger to them, as much as they are to her. She hadn't been there to protect them, and she hadn't been able to rescue them, hadn't even avenged them. All she had ever done was walk away. 

“And if they want to stay?” Melia asks. “Will you be leaving them here with me?”

Audrey shakes her head. “There's sure to be work in town, or a place in the woods if they won't have me. Ray and I will find somewhere to live, have no fear of that. You haven't acquired a permanent guest.”

There's something serious about her, despite her easy smile, that seems at odds with everything Melia has heard of monsters. She decides that if the folk in town won't stand for a half-yoma in their midst, she'll have to introduce them to how hard she can throw a punch – for her sisters' sake, if nothing else.

“I think they've been left often enough already, those two,” Audrey continues. “They need – somebody who understands what they are, and isn't afraid of them. And I need my rest, so don't mind me if I turn in now. It's been a long day on the road.”

Melia nods. “I'd best sleep myself. That chair is yours, if you want it. You'll forgive me if I don't offer you the bed.”

Audrey smiles again, lighter this time. “Like I said, I've no intention of imposing. The chair's fine.”

She folds her hands over her stomach and settles back, eyes closing, and Melia is left with the impression of a woman who can rest anywhere, not easily unsettled. Melia climbs the loft to check on the twins and finds them sleeping still, their swords set aside but in easy reach. She worries about those sharp edges, but she doesn't imagine they're in danger, and she isn't fool enough to try to take the weapons or anything else away from them. Instead, she pulls an extra blanket from a chest and settles it over both of them, then retreats back down the ladder and off to her own bed to wait for morning.

But she doesn't sleep, not well. She dreams about things that she doesn't remember and things she wants to forget, and when she wakes again, it's to an instant alertness that promises sleep will not be easy to reclaim. She's got her patchwork quilt pulled up to her neck, wrapped tight around herself in the throes of whatever nightmare woke her. Her husband had helped her sew it piece by piece, back before either of them had concerned themselves with thoughts of marriage or death, and she misses him suddenly, and her parents, though she hasn't thought of them in years. She wonders if she ought to find them again, if a yoma hasn't done for them yet. They should know, at least, that their stolen daughters are alive, and their runaway daughter too.

That can wait. She slips out of bed to a still, quiet house, full of the shapes and outlines of things made unfamiliar by darkness, uncertain what she's looking for but sure that she can't stay where she is. The full moon is shining outside the window, closer to morning than nightfall. The twins are sitting by her bookshelf, bent over a book that she would have thought it too dark for them to read, except that they aren't human any longer – she needs to remember that – and she see their eyes shining from across the room. They haven't restarted the fire, and the ashes lie cooling, only dull red embers remaining. That bothers her, somehow. It's cold in here, and the stone floor chills her feet as she goes over to greet them. She doesn't like the thought of a life that could have left anyone as comfortable in cold and dark as they are in warmth and light.

She adds a few more logs to the fireplace and stokes the coals to life, doing her best not to disturb the Claymore still snoring gently in her chair, then takes a place on the floor beside the twins, crouching on her heels with her arms folded over her knees. They're watching her closely, with a curious intensity that leaves her wishing she wasn't alone in this house with three Claymores on the outskirts of anywhere civilized. It isn't right, she thinks. It isn't fair to them that their eyes should frighten her the way they do.

“Sister,” one of them says. It isn't, she thinks, a question.

“Yes,” she says, even so.

“Will you read this for us?”

“Can't you?” she asks without thinking, then curses herself when the girl seems to draw back, a little more distant than before. She's not the only one on uncertain ground here, and maybe not the only one frightened. She needs to remember that too.

“We never learned.”

“Well,” she says. “Well, I suppose I'll have to start teaching you, then, come morning. Can't have my sisters uneducated. But for now...”

She takes the book and turns back to the beginning, to a painted picture of a castle wreathed in brambles and climbing vines. She remembers this story from her own childhood, and picking it up again in her thirteenth year, sitting beside a wooden cradle and reading aloud, no matter that she knew the twins were still too young to understand. She wonders if they remember too, but that's foolishness. Of course they don't. How could they?

They're here now, though. They'll remember this. If she's going to do right by them, this is where she starts.

“A long, long time ago,” she starts, “when the world was much younger, there was a princess who lived in the western mountains...”

They shift closer as Melia speaks, all that redoubtable focus aimed in her direction, but as her voice falls into the storyteller's cadence she forgets to be afraid, and remembers only the arc of the tale. After the book is closed, there's only the sound of the fire and a past that suddenly isn't as far away as she thought, and she finds herself almost reluctant to move for fear of ending the illusion.

“That story didn't make any sense,” one of the twins says, sounding almost affronted.

“Most stories that people make up don't make sense,” Melia says. “That's not what they're for.”

“What, then?”

“To teach us how to be people, I suppose.”

“Is that something you had to learn?” the other twin asks. 

Melia remembers Audrey's words at the dinner table, and smiles ruefully. “Sometimes I think it still is.”

The twins nod like she's just said something that does make sense, or at least more sense than a castle bound in cursed foliage, and one says, “Do you have any more made-up stories?”

“Lots,” Melia says. “Thousands. You'll get bored with them before long.”

“Unlikely.”

Melia doubts that, but maybe her storytelling is interesting for girls who never had any stories to listen to before, so she settles in and starts another. She tells them folktales from her hometown, old ones that they should have grown up listening to and she hasn't thought of in years – talking trees and banished princes and doors you shouldn't ever open. And even as a kid, she'd never been much for religion, outside of harvest spells and charms to keep the yoma away, but she ends up circling back around to it anyway, or something like it – two winged goddesses with a single spirit, closer to myth than anything people still believe in.

The word _sisters_ gets their attention. Melia sees them look up in unison, abrupt motion and stillness.

“Twin goddesses?” one of them asks, a hint of eagerness in her voice that Melia hasn't heard there before, and she can't help smiling.

“Yes,” she says, “they were twins,” though the truth is she doesn't actually know. “Always looked out for each other, and everyone else besides. Protected people.”

“What happened to them?”

Melia doesn't know. She's never heard that part of the story, and that bothers her a little, though she doesn't know why it should. It's just a story, after all, and she ought to be able to make up any ending she likes. But as soon as she considers it, even the possibility feels wrong. Whether or not she's earned their trust, whether she deserves it, she can't lie to them.

“I don't know,” she says. “Religions die out and fade away, and I think they're mostly just legends now. But – maybe someday you can help me find out.”

“We'd like that, we think,” one of them says. They look at each other, and one touches the other's shoulder lightly, some wordless communication passing between them. Melia wonders what they're thinking behind the blank masks of their faces, and whether she ought to ask, or just leave them alone to be what they are and tell what they will. 

After a moment, one of them turns back to her, almost hesitant, and says, “You said we had names, before.”

“You did,” Melia says. “Would you like them back?”

“New ones, we think.”

“Like the goddesses?” Melia asks, and they shake their heads immediately, no hesitation this time at all.

“Teresa and Clare are – ”

“Different people,” the other twin says. “We're not them.”

“We don't want to be,” the first says. She sounds almost defiant, but her sister is looking down at her hands, still and silent until she adds, more quietly, “We don't know who we want to be.”

“Seems to me,” Melia says, “that you don't have to. Not yet. But I do need something to call you that isn't a number.”

The girls think for a long moment, frowning as though working through a troublesome puzzle, until one of them says, “We could be Adamant and Ironheart.”

“That you could.” Melia manages not to crack a smile, for all they'd just named themselves after a pair of magic swords from one of her stories, before it occurs to her that maybe that's not so funny as she'd thought. “Which one of you is which?”

The two of them look at her flatly, their eyes gleaming cold. “It doesn't matter.”

Melia almost flinches and almost argues, but she's too tired to be afraid or stubborn, with the dawn light starting to creep above the horizon, and she can't see the harm in a shared name. The Goddesses weren't separate souls either, if they were ever real at all, and she supposes they got on all right. 

“Let me know if it ever does,” she says, and leaves it at that.

 _Swords,_ she thinks, shoving down a wave of anger at men who aren't even alive any longer and hardly matter now. Her sisters are more than that, and she hopes they know it, or at least that they're beginning to learn. She doesn't know how to teach a thing like that, not like she can teach letters or how to turn a stitch, and it might be that they won't be staying to begin with. 

Might be they will. Them and Audrey, and that other one she mentioned, and maybe a few more in time, if they find themselves welcome. Melia figures she wouldn't mind a pack of Claymores taking up residence nearby, keeping the thieves away and scaring the neighbors she never liked anyway, and hell, everyone needs somewhere they can call a home.

There will be time enough to worry about all that come morning. In the meantime – she shakes the sleep from her eyes and reaches up to pick another book from the shelf, and this time, when the twins lean in to listen, there's impulse to freeze, no shadow of fear quickly suppressed. Only a lightness in her chest that she barely remembers, and a feeling she recognizes, after a moment, as peace.

 _Something different,_ she thinks, _somewhere new._ This is as good a place as any, she supposes, and as good a time, and that's as much as anyone can hope for. Whether or not that will prove enough, there's no way to guess, but this time – she's willing to bet it will.


End file.
